


Victory March

by Thebeastisyou



Category: Glee
Genre: Depression, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-22
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-15 19:10:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/853036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thebeastisyou/pseuds/Thebeastisyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine having a depressive episode after Prom Queen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Victory March

Sunlight streams through the blinds into Blaine’s room, dappling prettily along the walls and floor. But Blaine’s got his back turned, lying on his side, one hand fisted in the comforter, staring at his suit hanging up on the closet. So carefully folded and buttoned onto its hanger again. He lays there and watches it with a blank face, has been for longer than he knows he should. He wishes vaguely that he could conjure up some emotion, any at all about last night. He wants to text Kurt and hope he’ll trust Blaine enough to tell him if he’s not okay, wants to feel angry at the world, or McKinley, or the person who said ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if-” and started the whole thing. But his phone’s miles away on the dresser and his anger’s buried somewhere even deeper. So he stares at the suit, still as unassuming and subtle as ever even after a night spent dancing with a queen.

After a minute he buries his face into his blankets, eyes squeezed shut until lights start to flash and it aches. What’s wrong with him? Why would he think that? Kurt was incredible last night. He was brave and, and, and so…He relaxes his eyes. Gives up. Whatever he was trying for, the thought’s gone.

With a groan he rolls over and squints at the clock. Eleven, his parents probably have breakfast laid out and Kurt, he’s probably awake, maybe waiting for a text or a call. But the kitchen’s downstairs and his phone’s out of reach, so he does what’s easiest and curls in on himself, hoping just for a little sleep and silence.

-

Kurt’s always loved cooking bacon, the playful sizzles and pops, the slight undercurrent of fear that he’ll burn himself, and the pride he’d felt when he’d surprised his dad with it for the first time. He pokes at a couple strips with his spatula and inhales, his grin surprising him. He’ll admit it, it feels a little like he’s celebrating a victory. Prom hadn’t gone as planned, true. It wasn’t normal or anything he could have expected, but when has his life ever been normal? Blaine had danced with him in front of the faceless mob who passed him by every day and he’d gotten a tiara coveted by hundreds of insecure wanna-be-beauty-queens. Nothing to sniff at. With one last poke he carefully slides the bacon with the rest on a plate covered with a paper towel, and sets the pan aside to deal with later. A scrambled egg sandwich is calling his name, dishes be damned.

Leaving most of the bacon to appease Finn and Carole when they wake up, Kurt walks his sandwich upstairs into the calm of his room. he takes a seat on his vanity, closing his eyes at the first bite of egg and bacon. He needs to find a way to start every morning like this for the rest of his life.

Wiping his mouth, his eyes catches on the glint off his tiara and septor, lying on the floor where he’d thrown them last night. They look so cheap and fragile in the sunlight, and it only takes a few seconds of looking before an idea strikes and he puts his sandwich down. He rushes to his closet and digs under some bags until he feels a prick on his finger and winces. Clearing away a few children’s books, he unearths a grinning skull, decked out in rhinestones, and laughs. It’s perfect. He hasn’t been able to find a place for it since the move, but it’s time to make room.

Spinning with the skull in hands, his eyes sweep over his shelves, fingers tapping soft on the skull’s jeweled side as he looks. He stops at a twisting tree sculpture he’d gotten a while back, red metal leaves hinting at autumn and a white trunk that had matched perfectly with the decor. But he’s sick of autumn, of the deeps reds and swirls of brown. It’s time for crystal and the tackiest gold. Nudging the tree to the side, he places the skull and twists it at an angle. Takes the tree back to the closet and places it on a shelf before going back to get his winnings.

It only takes him a second to arrange the tiara and septor around the skull, and he steps back to take it in with the whole wall. It glimmers beautifully against the white shelves and it’s such a perfect come back to everything that happened last night, he can’t help but feel proud. Biting his lip, he takes a quick picture with his phone and sends it to Blaine with a triumphant “must be tough to know your boyfriend’s royalty,”

He goes back to his vanity, matching the skull’s grin until he bites into a mouthful of cold and soggy egg. Puts it down with a sigh. Well he can still probably beat Finn to the rest of the bacon and screw him if he complains about the smell later.

-

Blaine chews slowly, glaring down at his plate and the tiny chip it has in the corner. The dining room is silent, Blaine’s barely said two words to them since he got home last weekend. Since Prom. Anna glances at her husband, he’s worn down already and this hasn’t even begun.

“You never told us how Prom went, was everything okay?” She’s trying to be nonchalant, trying to suss out what mood her son has fallen into, and how worried she has to be.

Blaine swallows and looks up. “It was fine, great, I mean it was really nice,”

“No one said anything, or-”

“No, no mom, it was really a good time, we danced, I have a picture if you want it,”

“If you can get it after dinner, we’d love to see it,” Blaine’s quiet for another minute and she’s afraid he’s gone again until he starts to clear his place.

“They sang Dancing Queen near the end and, and it was nice. To dance with everyone. It wasn’t so bad this time,” There’s a small smile on his face, but he keeps his head down and walks out before they can say anything. When he’s already in the hallway a casual “Dinner was great dad, thank you,” Floats back to them, and they listen as he puts his dishes away and pads up the stairs towards his bedroom.

Alan sighs and picks through his potatoes. “Well he’s not telling us something,”

“I know,”

“He’s shutting down again,”

“I know,”

“Kurt’s going to notice,”

“Probably,”

“And ask questions,”

“I hope so,” He looks up to see his wife smiling, pasta twirling at the end of her fork.

“I don’t know what to do,” He admits, and it’s been so long since she’s seen him this vulnerable, she feels a twinge of guilt for missing how open worry makes him. But she’ll never pass up the opportunity for comfort when it arises.

-

While Anna sets down her fork and goes to hold her husband at the table, Blaine lies on his bed, holds their Prom picture and looks at Kurt’s face smiling back at him. The lights from the gym shine off his tiara and Blaine’s shocked by how wide his own smile is, despite everything it had actually been a fun night, and relatively safe on top of that. This night might be too good for the cork board, maybe he has a frame somewhere instead. Something with gold to match, maybe. Or with pink for the background and their boutonnieres. He wonders if Kurt put his copy in a frame yet, he probably has. He’d gone through the trouble of immortalizing the tiara, he had to preserve the good memories too, right?

Blaine had been unnerved at first, to see Kurt’s picture of that glittering skull, but that’s what he did, he took the things people threw at him and made them his own, made them into armor. It scared him sometimes, how incredible his boyfriend was.

Gently he set the picture down beside him and pulled out his phone. He’d had it turned on silent and frowned to see all the texts Kurt had sent. Scrolling through it didn’t seem like anything was wrong, just Kurt’s usual, comments on his day to day, movie suggestions for date night, questions about metroid prime walkthroughs.

He sends a quick, ‘sorry, phone was off, and you’re telling me you don’t already own black shoe polish?’

Kurt’s just as fast in his response ‘Hey we’re still on for Friday? And no I used it up last month thank you’

‘Friday?’

“Date night? I thought we could see a movie’

‘Of course yes maybe seven?’

‘I’ll pick you up then. Your turn to buy snacks’

‘I remember. See you then’ He sets his phone aside and picks up the picture again. Holds it at arms reach and angles his thumb over the corner, blocking his face. So it looks like Kurt, unmistakable in his kilt and custom jacket, holding any nameless guy in a standard suit. Unremarkable. Boring. Replaceable.

The picture ends up stuffed behind his mirror.

-

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, it was a great movie, great pick, Kurt,”

They’re walking through the parking lot, lights illuminating their backs and making it just bright enough that Kurt can see that Blaine’s eyes are half closed and his mouth is pulled into a tight straight line. Like he’s forcing himself to look anything but miserable.

“Was it too crass? You didn’t laugh at all,”

Blaine looks up and smiles at him, shows his teeth and everything. Like he’s remembering how to behave normally from a checklist. The next box calls for a charming white lie.

“I thought it was really funny, they had great comedic timing, and you know how I feel about Maya,”

“I do. Which is why I’m confused that you didn’t laugh or whisper dumb jokes to me or pretend to reach for popcorn at the same time so you would have an excuse to hold my hand,”

They’re level with Blaine’s car and he’s got his keys in hand, fidgeting with his thumb over the key ring. He looks up to meet Kurt’s eyes, and it may just be the low light but he looks exhausted, shadows pulling his cheeks in and pooling under his eyes.

This relationship is better than Kurt could have hoped for, that he ever did hope for, but it’s still new. And even though he’s known Blaine for a while, there are moments when he feels like there’s nothing but ice between them. That one wrong step or nudge or word will shatter the illusion they’ve created together. He can feel the ice thinning tonight, that it’s been weakening since Prom. Since Blaine stopped talking and singing and lighting up the room. Can’t decide if the truth is worth the possibility of it all crashing down.

Blaine’s been studying his face, but now he slips his keys back into his blazer and steps to Kurt’s side of the car. Glances quick to the rest of the parking lot before grasping Kurt’s forearm and kissing him light on the lips. Fleeting contact and then gone, replaced by locked eyes and a smile that, while small, seems to be genuine.

“I had a good time and I enjoyed the movie. And next time you want to hold my hand in a bowl of popcorn, you can just ask me, okay?”

He could press it. He could demand to know what’s wrong and they could work it out. Kurt could understand what’s happening and what’s being hidden. But Blaine’s hand is curled around his arm and he looks smaller than usual, shoulders hunched and elbows tucked in at his sides. Kurt’s finding out that there’s nothing worse than your boyfriend looking afraid of what you might say next. So he steps back and leaves it for now. Kisses Blaine’s cheek and swats him over to the driver’s side and rambles about which dresses complement which figure and which do not, until Blaine drops him off at home with a wave and another soft kiss.

Lying on his rug looking at the ceiling it’s all Kurt can do to stop himself from pounding his fists into the floor. If he was a better boyfriend he would understand what was bothering Blaine. He would understand what he should do, how to fix it, what to change, where to go, how to act. But he doesn’t and he can’t so he lies on his back, looks at his broken nails and breathes.

-

Anna holds the ringing phone in her hand and looks up the stairs.

“It’s Kurt again,” She calls up to Blaine’s closed door.

“Okay, thank you,” A few more rings and Kurt gives up, Blaine’s door doesn’t budge. Anna sighs and replaces the phone on it’s hook. She twists a strand of hair behind her ear and leans against the kitchen counter. Prepares herself for battle, and then walks up to Blaine’s doorway. A light knock is her battering ram, and all that’s needed to gain a soft,

“Come in,” And entry. It’s worse than she thought. Blaine is wrapped in blankets, books off his shelves and piled around the room, robots organized by color and the curtains have a few extra stripes sewn in through the middles. She steps around his projects to the little chair beside his bed and sits down, looking down at her son’s blank face pressed into the mattress. She fights the urge to put a hand on his back, and she tucks in his bottom sheet a little more instead.

“How are you feeling today?” He turns and looks up at her voice, eyes still blank.

“I’m okay,”

“Blaine,”

He turns his face again, hiding his frown, fighting a losing battle to try and disguise his anger. “It’s not as bad as last time, I’m fine,”

“You’re not,” Her voice is gentle, but she can’t look at him anymore, can’t see him hide away when the sun has finally come out. When it’s Spring and he should be out with his friends or singing in the kitchen.

“I will be,” It’s clear that he’s trying to end the conversation, so she stands and pats his bed a last time.

“If you’re not, I want you to tell me. If you talk about it you might get to fine faster,” She doesn’t hear a word out of him for the rest of the night. Kurt calls and is ignored another three times. Anna paces and gets out the address book, looks up the doctor’s number a dozen times before packing it away and deciding to wait. Just a little longer, just a little bit more of a chance that he’ll come out of this before they have to intervene again. She can’t let herself give up hope just yet.

-

“That’s the fourth time today, if he’s not home why don’t you call his cell?” Finn looks absurd sitting in one of their spindly chairs pulled up to the island. Kurt’s pacing the floor, jiggling his phone and trying to look like he isn’t on the verge of panicking.

“I’ve been trying his cell too, he won’t pick up on anything except to say that he’s busy. It’s Sunday, what’s he doing? Why can’t he tell me?”

“Maybe he’s going places he doesn’t want you to know about,”

“We don’t keep secrets,” Kurt snaps, but Finn’s unmoved.

“Maybe he does,”

“Finn,”

He shrugs his shoulders and spins around so he’s facing Kurt fully. “Look, I’m just saying this is a little suspicious, okay? Blaine seems cool, but if he’s hiding something from you, maybe he’s not. So cool,”

Kurt runs a hand over his hair and starts pacing again. “This is ridiculous, there’s an explanation, I know it,”

“Yeah, but maybe not one you want to hear,” Finn gets up and ignores Kurt’s glare. “I’m just saying, I like him, but this sounds weird to me, it’s like when everyone in Glee was trying to lie about sleeping together, people got really cold and defensive and stuff,”

Kurt watches Finn throw his plate away and walk out toward the basement. Sleeping together?

-

Perched on the stool in front of his vanity, Kurt stares at the blinking cursor in the Goolge search bar. is my boyfriend cheating on me? He worries his bottom lip between his teeth and glances behind his shoulder before hitting enter. He goes for a website with warning signs to watch out for. Settling down with his legs tucked underneath him he scrolls through the top paragraph to get to the bullet points.

#1 They’re suddenly more aloof, withdrawn or want more “space.”

Overall, you’re noticing less intimacy, sharing, talking and self-disclosures going on. Your partner may seem zoned out, lost in thought or less available to you.

Kurt leans in and tries to ignore the pit forming in his stomach. Ever since Prom Blaine had been absent minded and distant. He’d hardly texted or called, they barely saw each other or even spoke anymore. Was Kurt that boring? Did he go too far with the kilt? Maybe he shouldn’t have let Blaine twirl him. He shouldn’t have mentioned going on vacation together next summer, what was he thinking? No wonder Blaine was staying away and probably falling into the arms of a more self-assured normal all-american gay guy with a normal nose and a mustache.

Biting his thumb nail, his eyes flick down to the next couple signs; #2 They’ve lost interest in you and #3 They get easily annoyed, defensive or argumentative.

That had all been happening, Blaine was, not angry exactly, maybe brooding was the right word. He was quiet or fidgety when they were together, he wouldn’t even kiss him as often as before. He wasn’t interested in Kurt’s day or Glee or how much better he’s been getting at figuring out Sims architecture. He tried, of course he tried to seem interested, but Kurt could tell he wasn’t all there. He’d been listless, he forgot their date nights and jokes Kurt had told him. Was he too concerned with someone else’s life to bother with his anymore?

But his heart stops at #4; They’re not immediately available when you call, text or email them. Your partner is spending more and more time away from you, and they’re more difficult to reach. When you try calling on their cell phone, you get voicemail. When you ask why they didn’t call or text you back, the answer is, “The battery died and I couldn’t use my phone.” There are endless excuses about work or other things that limit their availability for making plans with you.

Blaine had used almost that exact excuse constantly over the last few days “My phone’s been dead, I’ve been running errands, I’ve been busy,” It’s been a constant stream of nothing but lies and Kurt’s eyes are starting to burn. He can’t make himself read the rest, Xs the window and stares at the slightly stretched faces of the Glee kids on his laptop background. Almost all these people cheated at one time or another, all these sweet, smiling, innocent, backstabbing faces. And now Blaine was probably one of them.

He puts his computer to sleep and steps away, sick dread curling in his stomach until he notices the gleam from the skull and it’s tiara. He clenches broken nails to his palms. His boyfriend is a boy with a soft spot for chia pets and a separate section of his dresser just for socks he knows are the best to dance in. A boy who could barely ask him out without blushing for the first month they were together. Kurt may not have a lot of experience with cheating, but that doesn’t sound like a cheater to him.

But neither did Rachel, who pined so sweetly for Finn, or Tina, but they had. They’d cheated and hurt the people closest to them and Blaine could too. Kurt bit his lip and only hesitated for a moment before grabbing his wallet and stomping down the stairs. He’s Kurt Hummel and he’s getting to the bottom of this tonight, for better or worse.

-

Blaine’s on the couch debating opening another bag of baby carrots when the doorbell rings. A jolt of dread gets him up and his ingrained manners carry him the rest of the way to the door. He checks through the window and pulls back when he sees the back of Kurt’s head, pretending to admire the bricks and looking absolutely fantastic doing it. If he debates about this he knows he’ll probably never move so he opens the door as quick as he can. Only when Kurt turns around does he start to worry about his hair and possible stains on his shirt, which is really too baggy, and that he hasn’t washed his face today, and-

“What’s going on?” Blaine blinks at him through the glass of the outer door. Maybe should have left the manners and let the dread carry him up to his room instead. “Can I come in?” And true to form Kurt opens the door himself and steps through, forcing Blaine to step back and admit him. They stand on the welcome mat, Kurt twirling a chain on his jacket until Blaine invites him to sit down.

They end up with a fruit salad each sitting on opposite ends of the couch with the TV muted between them. Kurt watches him and chews a grape. “Are you ready to tell me what’s going on?”

“It’s not a big deal, it really isn’t, which is why I didn’t tell you,” Kurt’s whole body tenses at that, jaw setting to dangerous levels of steely.

“What isn’t a big deal, Blaine?”

“I mean, it’s really nothing, I didn’t want to bring you into it, because it’ll pass, and I thought, I thought I could get through it without you noticing,”

Kurt’s almost shaking at this point and his eyes have gone glassy. Alarmed, Blaine starts to get up, to move towards him but Kurt slams the bowl of fruit down and stands. Fists clenched and eyes locked on Blaine’s he looks like he’s fighting not to cry.

“Are you cheating on me?”

It takes a few seconds for Blaine to change directions so quickly.

“Am I what?”

“Cheating! Are you and another guy doing, doing things that we should be doing? Is that why you’re ignoring me and being aloof and uncaring? Because you’re k-kissing someone else?” He’s shaking now, and Blaine doesn’t know what to do.

“Of course I’m not, what, where did you get that idea?”

Kurt wipes angrily at his eyes. “Oh please Blaine, because you ignoring my calls and acting bored when I’m around you is a sign of a healthy monogamous relationship,”

“I, Kurt I’m not cheating on you, I’m depressed,” The room stills and suddenly there’s not enough air. Blaine quickly backpedals. “I mean, I’ve been, I’ll be fine, I am fine, but before I was, so I just thought,-”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kurt doesn’t look intimidating anymore, just scared and lost, so Blaine tentatively walks over and sits down with him again. After a few minutes of silence, of Kurt’s steadying breaths and Blaine focusing on the way the carpet was vacuumed in a pattern, Kurt looks up at Blaine. “What do you mean, before?”

He studies the backs of his hands now, can feel Kurt’s eyes on him. “Just that, when, after freshman year, it was really bad for a while, and sometimes after that,” He can’t look at Kurt now, he can’t stand the pity from another person close to him. “But it always gets better and I’m always okay, so you don’t have to worry,” He wonders idly if guys ever shave the backs of their fingers, waiting with his head down for Kurt to say something.

“I’m trying to figure out if this is better than you cheating on me,” Kurt says with a shaky grin that Blaine turns to see, amazed.

“Better, this is temporary and definitely fixable,”

“Definitely?”

“Definitely,” Blaine curls his fingers around Kurt’s and leans back, eyes closing to marvel at how light his chest feels.

“Can it be helped with some Desperate Housewives?”

“They haven’t failed me yet,”

It’s still hard, with Kurt holding him a little more tightly than usual, with the constant reminder that he shouldn’t have bothered Kurt with this, that he shouldn’t have let it get that far. When his eyes start to droop a few episodes in, Kurt arranges a contest to see who can catch the most pieces of fruit in their mouth. It’s enough, for now, to distract him, to lighten the mood and keep him going. As he can feel Kurt’s breathing start to slow, the gentle rise and fall of his chest along Blaine’s back, he just hopes that the worst is behind them. That Kurt won’t have to see him at his lowest. Or that he finds a way to hide it if it comes to that. He closes his eyes and listens to Kurt’s light snores and feels himself drifting, holds Kurt’s hands just a little closer than he usually did as he feels himself start to doze.

-

When Anna comes home there are chunks of fruit all over the carpet and Kurt is lying on the floor, curled like a second skin around her son, both of them fast asleep. She dims the lights on her way upstairs and makes a note to call Mr. Hummel in a few hours if they haven’t woken up yet. A call goes out to Alan and Dr. Monty later that night, and she’s able to relax for the first time in weeks while her son wishes his boyfriend an extended goodbye at the door. Feet kicked up in an armchair, she closes her eyes and is grateful, for her son and her home and the possibility of tomorrow.


End file.
